Game Design Reflection
For the last 10 quarters, I have been part of a class that is focused on game design. I personally went into the class without much to expect. The title “Designing Serious Games” attracted me to it because of its similarity to a lot of things that I have love and played in the past like a lot of Nicky Case’s work. My goal from the clas was to learn how to start thinking about such products, what are some tricks that can get me there and maybe the tools to use. I personally came from a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) background, so I knew a thing or two about user testing and design. I also came into the class full of ideas from the real world that I wanted to put into games and make them enjoyable.
In Class
It is hard to look at a 3-hour slot in your schedule, and think that it will pass by quickly. I went into my first lecture preparred to be there forever basically. It soon became clear that the 3 hours were much different than just a chunk of a 3-hour lecture. The lecture, and in general the class structure, was made up of 4 parts: theory or lecture, real examples, making and reflection. We usually did the theory portion on our own through reading. I personally found some parts of it really interesting and good to know, but it was always hard for me to make it stick or to actually put it into action when working. As I mentioned, I came from an HCI background, so a lot of the theory was to some degree familiar to me just slightly different to accommodate the fact that it was game design.
The other 3 parts: real examples, making and reflection were absolutely amazing. I personally loved the amount of games that we played whether as a homework or in class. It was fascinating to see myself and other people in the class move from game players to game analysts. We developed the vocabulary, the understanding of the mechanics and the design together. In addition, I loved how these games brought us all closer together.
The part about making was enjoyable, but hard. I really loved being able to come up with an idea for a game, design something quickly and put it in front of people to play it. As much as I hated seeing my game getting “destroyed” when playtesting, I would just pick myself up after the playtesting sessions end, and get back to changing the game. The amount of playtesting that games required to get better was a lot, but at least, it was a definite way of getting our games better. This method worked well with 3 out of the 4 projects of the class. The one that things just got hard on was interactive fiction.
I am not a story writer, but I know how to make up things, how to hook someone to wanting to see the end. But interactive fiction was hard to even get going. It was hard to even get the first prototype out to test on people. It just felt like everytime I attempted to write an idea that I have, things would start looking worse than they actually are. That continued on and on until I had to turn something in by a deadline. I just sat down for 2 nights, and I came up with a thing. I put it into a website. I had a prototype for the first time, but it was few hours before my presentation. What I much later realized about myself is that I’m terrified of blank pages. There’s something about writing a paper that requires me to be under pressure to get going. That thing only kicks in near a deadline. What if there was no deadline? Well, I need to figure that out. I noticed this even with my papers for other classes.
The last part, which is reflection was probably the most important. Being able to have the time to think about the previous project’s decisions and what I learnt from it was really useful for me. I like to think of myself as someone who is conscious about my shortcomings. By having this reflection being part of the class where I could be open with the teacher and everyone about what I thought of my work, it made it easier for me to face these shortcomings, and to accept them. It made it easier to listen to feedback and improve on it.
Finally, in this class, there was some special social component that I have never seen in any other class. People were eager to help each other grow their ideas and develop them without anything in return. The air in that classroom was filled with good intentions. If my game got critiqued for looking too cluttered, I would look at the board and see why the other person is thinking that is the case, and in most cases I would find that they are right. I didn’t feel at any point that the critique was directed at me or was not aimed at making the work better, In addition, when working in goups, there was a trust between team members that everyone did what they could even if it wasn’t equal amount of hours, a thing that is not often found in classes.
Life after 377G
I think over everything, this class taught me things that I can live by not only in games context. The heavy emphasis of the class on playtesting is one that I will always carry with me. The playtester for me is the user, who will always be relevent in my design work. They will always be the deciders for me on the vaildity of my work. In addition, the idea of accepting the issues within your product and proceeding to fixing them is one that I will always carry with me. One thing that I will definitely try to do better is the speed at which I’m willing to prototype something versus thinking it out. I think that I need to be a bit brave with putting things that are broken or completely unfinished out there for testing. I definitely can start with things a bit earlier and just let the design process lead.
I might build a game again in the future. Now that I took this class, I feel far more equipped with ideas that could make things work better than without it.
Thank you Christina Wodtke for being the amazing teacher you are and to the class of CS 377G, 2018 Fall.
